Nominations have closed for the 2017 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award and we have a great group of nominees. I’ve listed them below in alphabetical order, along with a bit of description of who they are, which includes in some cases the language used by the nominator(s). Where possible I’ve included a link to a helpful webpage about them. You can read more about this award here in an archive of posts about it over the years. Note that folks at stem cell clinics or others involved in non-compliant work cannot be nominees for the Stem Cell Person of the Year Award.

Soon Internet voting to choose the finalists will begin (the top 1/2 vote getters of the nominees become finalists), from which I will choose the one winner.

Although I have mixed feelings on the Internet voting since some people try to game the system that way and Internet voting has its issues more broadly, I decided to keep the vote to pick finalists for now as I really like that in this way this blog’s community gets to participate in the Stem Cell Person of the Year Award process.

Anthony Atala, Professor and Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Chair of the Department of Urology at Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina. Stem cell research scholar, working on a number of important areas including tissue/organ transplantation based on stem cells. Advocate for the regenerative medicine field and winner of numerous awards.

Megan Munsie, Associate Professor, Deputy Director of the Centre for Stem Cell Systems and Head of Education, Ethics, Law & Community Awareness Unit, Stem Cells Australia, at University of Melbourne. Leading scientist and advocate of responsible use of stem cell and regenerative medicine technologies.

Michele De Luca, Professor, University of Modena, and Director of Centre for Regenerative Medicine. Stem cell research pioneer and leader of team that recently replaced a boy’s epidermis using an innovative combination cell-gene therapy.

Sally Temple, Scientific Director, Co-Founder, and Principle Investigator at the Neural Stem Cell Institute as well as Past-President of ISSCR and MacArthur Fellow. Innovative stem cell researcher and scholar, also working to make a difference on policy.

Although only half of these nominees can be finalists and only one can receive the Stem Cell Person of the Year Award, what an amazing group overall. I hope everyone reading this post can via the group of nominees learn about someone new to them who has big impact.